The Vitamin Conspiracy

Are our attempts to boost immunity doing more harm than good?

It was in a Biology class when I was a teenager, that I first learned the concept that excess Vitamin C is carcinogenic. I remember reading the section of text a few times over, and then passing it around. It was hard to believe then, and now, years later, people use vitamins even more, far in excess of recommended levels.

Dr. Michael Leitzmann and his colleagues have discovered that men who ingest excess vitamins are particularly vulnerable to cancer of the prostate. When men habitually ingest more than the 7 recommended doses in a given week, their chances of contracting an advanced cancer spikes 30%; the chance of contracting a deadly cancer doubles through this same habit of consuming excess multivitamins. These findings are based on almost 300 000 men who were studied over a 5 year period to determine a link between prostate cancer and multivitamin use.

No general cancer risk was evident; instead the risk was related to a more aggressive cancer, capable of moving beyond the prostate gland. The message then is directed at men; that if they must take multivitamins, to stick to the prescribed doses.

In terms of the anti-oxidants (A, E and beta-carotene), 47 clinical trials conducted by the Cochrane Centre on 180 000 volunteers determined a greater risk of death as a result of merely making use of these supplements. No evidence, for example, was found that anti-oxidants were able to prevent cardiovascular infections. It was also determined that the consumption of these supplements did more harm than good in healthy subjects, as opposed to pregnant women or others (e.g. those HIV positive) suffering from chronic vitamin deficiencies.

Vitamin C and selenium was found to neither decrease the risk of death, or increase it (at the correct dosage), meaning, there was a negligible benefit if any.

The trend is that although many people aren’t sure that vitamins are effective, they consume and use them on the off chance that they might be. Now we have clinical evidence to prove the cardinal error in this line of thinking.

Prof. Jimmy Volmink (of the South African Cochrane Centre) commenting on research conducted by the Cochrane Centre, recommends that vitamins be sought directly at source: in produce, such as fruits and vegetables.

Volmink also added that it is more beneficial to one’s health to go on a long holiday, than to take anti-oxidants.

Of course, the reason millions of people use vitamins in the first place is because it is Big Business, and Big Business sells it to consumers under the guise of supposed (potential but not proven) efficacy. AC Nielsen pegged the total sales value of vitamins sold in 2006 (in South Africa) at R570 million. This figure is increasing at over 25% a year, according to the report by AC Nielsen.

For some years, aware of the fallacy surrounding vitamins, I have critically looked at the language advertisers use to promote everything from anti-aging creams to vitamins. In almost every case, the emotive language makes use of crucial qualifiers, like ‘can’, or ‘may’, and in some cases ‘helps’.
Example:
So Vitamin X can bring health to your whole family. Be vigilant! Be discerning!
Sure it can, but not in terms of the way it is packaged. Vitamins that are packaged are seldom, if ever, effective, and even when they might be they need to be absorbed at the correct levels and often in combination with other substances such as minerals, enzymes etc. Buying vitamins off a shelf as the product advertised is simply a deception. In the same way that misleading tobacco advertising has been addressed, the same generally misrepresentative advertising and labelling ought to be nipped in the bud with regard to vitamin products.

Being aware of this, I asked my doctor to prescribe something that would really help boost immunity (following a secondary lung infection). He suggested Moducare, a formula which contains plant sterols and sterolins. On the packaging it claims to be: The only formula proven in extensive research. The dosage is high, 1 tablet 3 times daily.

Once again it seems as though laziness is what drives us to put our faith in vitamins in pill form. We are a society wanting to eat junk which robs the body of vital nutrients – such as the diuretics: caffeine and alcohol – but then we think we can play catch-up by fueling up on vitamins. It doesn’t happen that way. This approach costs us not only our health, but money otherwise better spent.

The way to health then is a straightforward but not necessarily convenient approach: regularly purchase fruit and vegetables. Preparing vegetables is also important when we’re conscious of their vitamin value. Avoid microwaving. Rather steam your vegetables until they are soft enough to eat. Boiling is best to avoid too since what the heat doesn’t kill, the goodness that remains goes into the water poured out of the pot.

Fruits can be consumed as is, but not substituted for fruit juice. The reason why fruits have vitamins and not fruit juices was explained to me once by a Hungarian doctor. It made an impression that stayed with me ever since. As soon as you kill an animal, or pluck a fruit from a tree, the vitality in the tissues of that plant or animal immediately begin to fall. Vitamins are precious threads of vitality in living organisms, but once the tissue is dead, the vitamin quality erodes quickly. Imagine it as a gas that seeps out with the spent lifeforce. The next step is imagining the storage of these vitamins, for days, weeks and months, alongside preservatives and other chemicals. The life and goodness has long since left the building. Thus the idea that consuming fruit juice as a credible substitute for the source fruit is simply crazy. Orange juice for example is rarely orange, and tastes nothing like freshly squeezed oranges. Also, original orange juice does not preserve well, nor for very long (as do many other juices). Even when natural preservatives are used (such as from apples and grapes), in the end it is still an artificial beverage that often has more sugar than soda pop, and very limited nutritional value.

Vitamins packed on shelves in pharmacies and supermarkets are therefore a big con. Why? Because vitamins, the vitality of the host, cannot be stored. Minerals, of course can be.
So if you are serious about looking after your health, or boosting your immunity, bear in mind The Vitamin Conspiracy. The old tried and trusted common denominators are free or cheap, and will add years of quality to your life: eat fresh produce every day, exercise, get enough sleep, rest and find time to live and laugh.

Background for this article sourced and translated from an article by Diana-Marie Strydom: Antioksidante kan jou dood beteken, se navorsers (Antioxidants kan kill you, researchers say).